Ah, g'wan, g'wan, g'wan, she encourages. It's tempting but nobody takes up Pauline McLynn's offer to "run amok and take whatever you like" in the Stephen's Green Centre. "It's part of the deal, go on, go on," she cheekily assures us. No, all the guests prefer to stay, nibble on the sausages, sip some wine and be entertained by McLynn, the actor who is probably best known as Mrs Doyle, the indomitable housekeeper from the much loved TV series, Father Ted. We are here to launch her first book, Something for the Weekend.
The book "has been described as `boisterous'," she says with great feeling, nodding over her specs at her mother, Sheila McLynn. "When it (the writing) is not going well you make your head bleed so much it's worse than a hangover," says the "lady novelist", as she christens herself. Although peppered with details from real life, McLynn says her first book is not based on her own life and "I am not pregnant," she adds for good measure.
Actor Frank Kelly reminisces briefly about Father Ted. "I very much miss it," he says. "It was like a little family. It was a way of life and it structured your life for over four years. She (Pauline) was a great spiritual support to me. She kept me sane because she has such an outrageous sense of humour. I was living on my own in London." Among the throng are Richard Cook, McLynn's husband, the man behind the Kilkenny Cat Laughs Festival and co-director of the Bickerstaffe Theatre Company, and his father, Alan Cook. There are all manner of actors here: Helene Montague, Jonathan White, Conor Mullen, Owen Roe and Jane Brennan. The actor-turned-writer, Kate Thompson, who has just delivered her fourth novel to the publishers which is "unashamedly romantic", is, like the others, thanked by McLynn "for being so great in the beginning, who said carry on".
Playwright Tom Murphy is "never surprised by Pauline. Her talent is boundless. I'm longing to read it."